An awkward moment for a royal couple as they realise that real parents may be watching.

There is yet another (yaaaawwwwnnnn) surge of hysteria in the British and North American media about the apparently astonishing fact that Prince William Windsor/Wales and his wife the duchess of somewhere are expecting another baby. No, it won't be delivered to the door by the butler; it's apparently going to arrive by the normal means.One assumes that the child was similarly conceived by normal means. However, these are likely to be the only 'normal' things about this child's life.No matter how strenuously the young and trendily un-royal couple try to sell their lifestyle as being typical for people of their own age, it is anything but typical of life anywhere outside of an anachronistic institution such as a monarchy. Frankly, I grow very tired of attempts by the modern monarchy to appear anything but privileged, pampered and protected from the pressures that the overwhelming majority of their so-called 'subjects' endure.It began with Prince Charles taking a beautiful young bride for reasons which seemed to escape him, bless his cotton (silk?) socks, and as Diana (who, let's be honest folks, was not exactly the innocent abroad that she tried to claim to be) made every effort to become some kind of hybrid of people's choice and outrageously privileged aristocrat. Diana succeeded in becoming the darling of the press, second in popularity only to the queen herself, and rode the crest of her personal myth for many years until it became obvious to all but the most delusional fan, that she was neither playing a fair game, nor playing with a stable personality. Upon her untimely demise, the royal family set out on a thorough re-branding exercise, the current incarnation of which is Wills 'n Kate, the truly modern, hipster royal couple.Please - give me a break. A normal, average couple who happen to be royal? There's no such thing in the British system. The royals have very little genuine understanding of how the overwhelming majority of people live in western society. This isn't entirely their own fault, however they do persist in continuing traditions such as nannies for the kids (needlessly absent parents) and being treated as if they are all made of finely spun glass, and most of all, of course, the tradition that they are all very, very special in a way that defies analysis. Bollocks.The royals never have to worry about most people's biggest stressor; money. Money is never short, and if ever were, the nation would divvy up and pay their debts (there's a long tradition of that in the British history) as well the upkeep on their residences. The royals, despite assertions to the contrary, never have to lift a finger to help themselves; servile obedience are the watch words of royal households - the obedience of poorly paid and often badly-treated servants at that. I've seen the world within which the royals live from up close in the course of my duties in a former career; never have I seen a group of people so spoiled, so fawned upon, and so weirdly unnatural-looking. Never have I met people with such a distorted bubble within which they move (the old joke may be true; the queen may indeed believe that the world smells of fresh paint and strong cologne). Never have I seen so much time and money wasted to create a façade which is probably entirely lost upon the aristocratic brain as it passes by, demurely waving a gloved hand.Unlike some people, I don't hate them, but I do hold the institution in contempt. The Monarchy is an outdated relic which does not deserve to survive - especially while children go hungry, and while money is stripped away from the armed services and the police. Monarchies are, after all, the vestiges of - almost without exception - families which killed, raped, and stole their way to power many centuries ago. Aristocratic families were created by victorious kings from the ranks of their fighting men - if you killed a lot of people, you were given a gift of land, money and a title. Nobility is a very subjective word, and it's my guess that the veneer of honour is a very, very thin one.All of which brings me to the furor around another royal pregnancy. It's not, of course, anything of the sort; the genes involved are no different to yours or mine. they're simply human genes (in the royals' case, probably getting a little too close to being in-bred) with no remarkable features. The monarchs have no special powers, no gifts to offer mankind...and yet significant numbers of people still seem to get very excited about the prospect of royal events (engagements, marriages, births). If they stopped to ask themselves why - REALLY why - perhaps this inappropriate fervour might die down a little.The latest pregnancy - that of an unextraordinary human - will be watched with feverish excitement, then will come a birth which will be treated like a religious event, following which thousands of pictures of a baby which will be bound to look like Winston Churchill (they all do) shall be spread before us to fawn over.In the meantime, thousands of children will die of hunger every day; thousands of children dying while money is spent upon things like Prince Charles' makeup, and the wage of the man who polishes his shoes and irons his shirts, and the woman who answers the queen's letters for her...